Last week, the Tax Foundation released new polling data on Americans' attitudes toward taxation. As always, it is interesting reading.
The most interesting question to me is: "What is the maximum percentage of a person's income that should go to taxes -- that is, all taxes, state, federal and local?"
The question is ambiguous because it is not clear if people are being asked about the effective rate of taxation (taxes as a share of income) or the marginal rate of taxation (that which applies to the last dollar earned). But either way, taxes are much higher than people think they should be.
According to the poll, 24 percent of people think all taxes should take less than 10 percent of a person's income. Another 43 percent think they should take less than 20 percent and an additional 22 percent think the tax burden should be no more than 30 percent of income.